DAVID VIRELLES – Mbókò: Sacred Music for Piano, Two Basses, Drum Set
and Biankoméko AbakuáECM 378 2966David Virelles:piano; Thomas Morgan:double bass; Robert Hurst:double bass; Marcus Gilmore:drums; Román Díaz: biankoméko, vocalsRecorded December 2013David Virelles has been heard on previous ECM
releases, appearing on Tomasz Stanko’s Wislawa
and Chris Potter’s The Sirens, and
with Mbókò: Sacred
Music for Piano, Two Basses, Drum Set and Biankoméko Abakuá, the Cuban born
but Brooklyn based pianist makes his debut for the label.Taking folkloric
rhythms of Afro-Cuban religious ritual he has brought the music in the 21st
century and juxtaposed the traditional music of his own heritage with that of
his abilities as a jazz musician and improviser. Further investigation in to
the origins of the title and the Abakuá culture, apart from proving educational
and interesting may only serve to blur the intent and power of the music, as
the theory and motives of Virelles’s in composing these pieces is a very personal
part of his who he is, as both a person and a musician. Crucial
to the success of the music is the melding together of two sets of relationship
between piano and percussion, and the two basses and drums, and how they find
common ground and forge a new unified and collective.Percussionist Román Díaz plays the traditional Cuban four
drum biankoméko kit, and as Virelles’s points out is a specialist
of the largest drum in the biankoméko – the improvising drum bonkó enchemiyá.
It is this relationship that is initially explored in the albums two opening
pieces, both of which are rather introverted and at time impenetrable. However,
the music gradually opens up with ‘Biankoméko’ where the piano lines are more
animated and elaborate, and from here on the roles within the unusual
instrumentation become more defined. However, more defined does not mean a mere
reverting to type, but the two basses working together to create a drone as
well as a pulse, and drummer Marcus Gilmore integrates himself with the material
and his colleagues in both camps, in a dialogue that draws the all the parts
seamlessly into a satisfying whole.This process develops over the course of the album,
with the collective very quickly feeding off the splinters of melody from the
keyboard, and listening and reacting to the less familiar timbres and rhythms
of the biankoméko. This culminates in a beautifully played out ‘The High One’,
a quiet reflective piece that is reminiscent of looking into a well, with more
being revealed the deeper one looks.Reviewed by Nick Lea